Letter to the Editor
Dear Clergy, Religious, and Laity,
Members of my family and I extend our
heartfelt thanks to you for your many expressions
of love and concern during the illness of my dear
brother Father Peter Mockler. He was comforted
and touched by your visits, cards, letters, prayers,
masses, and all of your demonstrations of caring.
We also appreciate your many kind gestures of
sympathy following his death. We, too, have been
comforted by your outpouring of love for him and
us.
Our God is with us when we are mourning,
and His presence was demonstrated through the
multitudes of you whose displays of compassion
and kindness were abundant. Your kind and
thoughtful words, your presence at the visitations
and Rites of Christian Burial, and all your acts of
love and support gave us strength. Father Pete was
blessed to have spent over forty years as a priest
and to have had his life celebrated in three great
funeral liturgies.
We are eternally grateful to you for the
amazing expressions that honored the memory of
our brother and son and touched us deeply. We
commend him to the mercy of God, and we will
assist him with our prayers. The Holy Sacrifice of
the Mass will be offered in appreciation of your
kindness.
Sincerely in Christ,
Father Patrick Mockler
Pastor, Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church
P
apal
T
raditions
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to his eternal love for man... believing in this love
means believing in mercy.”
Meeting in March with priests from the Diocese of
Rome, Pope Francis said one of the greatest inspira-
tions of Pope John Paul was his intuition that “this was
a time for mercy.”
“It is a gift he gave us, but one that came from
above,” Pope Francis said. “It is up to us as ministers of
the church to keep this message alive, especially in our
preaching and gestures, in signs and pastoral choices
-- for example, in deciding to give priority to the sacra-
ment of reconciliation and, at the same time, to works
of mercy.”
Pope John Paul also instituted the annual Feb. 2
World Day of Consecrated Life, the Feb. 11 World
Day of the Sick and a World Meeting of Families every
three years. But welcoming hundreds of thousands of
young people to the Vatican for a special Palm Sun-
day celebration in 1984, Pope John Paul launched what
has become the biggest international gathering on the
church’s calendar: World Youth Day.
Explaining to the Roman Curia the importance of
World Youth Day and youth ministry in general, Pope
John Paul said: “All young people must sense that the
church is accompanying them, therefore the whole
church in union with the successor of Peter increasingly
must be committed, on a worldwide level, to the good
of youth, their worries and concerns and their open-
ness and hopes.” At the end of the U.N.-declared Inter-
national Year of Youth in 1985, he said young people
were hoping for change in society and in the world; the
church, which looks to youths with “hope and love,”
must help young people realize that change by commu-
nicating the Gospel truths to them, supporting them as
they seek God’s plan for their lives and educating them
in living their faith.
Of course, Pope John Paul left a mark on more than
the church’s calendar. Surprisingly for many people, St.
Peter’s Square didn’t have a Christmas tree or Nativity
scene until 1982. Even after the College of Cardinals
asked him to leave Krakow, Poland, and lead the uni-
versal church, he continued to keep Polish Christmas
traditions; for years, he would invite fellow Poles to the
Vatican on Christmas Eve to break “oplatek” (a Christ-
mas wafer) with him and to sing Polish carols. He had
been pope for four years when he asked the Vatican
governor’s office to put some Christmas decorations in
the square under his window, thus a new tradition was
born.
Some of Pope John Paul’s innovations had a lot
to do with the fact that he was a very outdoorsy, fit
58-year-old when elected to the See of Peter in 1978.
He liked to ski and walk in the mountains and, appar-
ently, didn’t think that should change. As he grew older
and weaker from Parkinson’s, the physical activity di-
minished, but he and a few aides never stopped slipping
out of the Vatican on the occasional Tuesday for a drive
to the mountains and a sack lunch al fresco.
But he didn’t just head for the hills. Pope John Paul
made the nine international trips taken by Pope Paul
VI seem like a trifle; Pope John Paul took his message
on the road, visiting 129 countries -- several repeatedly
-- on 104 trips and logging more than 700,000 miles in
a papacy that lasted more than 27 years.
Joseph
first century
feast - March 19
The husband of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and
the legal father of Jesus according to Jewish law,
Joseph is a model of humility and obedience
to God’s will. He followed God’s instructions,
given by angels in dreams, and took the pregnant
Mary into his home as his wife, protected her and Jesus from the child’s birth in
Bethlehem through the family’s sojourn in Egypt, and provided for them as a car-
penter in Nazareth. This feast, which was celebrated locally as early as the ninth
century, became a universal feast in the 16th century. Pope Pius IX named Joseph
patron of the universal church in 1870; he is also the patron saint of carpenters,
the dying and workers.
©Copyright 2014 Catholic News Service
Gulf Pine Catholic
•
March 28, 2014
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